Thibault de montalembert

In one of his always entertaining books about Hollywood, screenwriter William Goldman offered a candid insight into why one picture he wrote, 1996’s The Ghost and The Darkness, didn’t work. He blamed its failure on the casting of Michael Douglas in a prominent role as a nineteenth-century big game hunter, describing Douglas the epitome of the “flawed, contemporary American male.” Certainly, compared to his peers, Douglas has taken on remarkably few costume drama roles. Instead, he became best known for icy performances in psychosexual thrillers like Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct, in which he played alpha males slowly dismantled by powerful and intellectually superior women, to say nothing of his iconic and deservedly Oscar-winning performance as Gordon “Greed is good!

For the past few weeks I have been binge-watching the Netflix series Call My Agent! (or Dix pour cent, as it is more satisfyingly known in France). Though it’s not quite as exquisite, multilayered and beguiling as my all-time favourite French drama Le Bureau, it has a similar appeal: strong, well-drawn characters in a distinctive setting in another country (France, obvs) where they do things differently because everyone is just so damned French. This time it’s not about foreign intelligence services but a movie talent agency which, though perpetually on its uppers (for the purposes of that TV concept known as ‘jeopardy’, I suppose), nevertheless seems to have on its books all the most bankable stars in France. They crop up, playing themselves, in cameo roles.